


How to Seduce Your Local Herbalist

by AStrangeFate



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Lord Derek, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 01:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9795875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AStrangeFate/pseuds/AStrangeFate
Summary: Stiles thinks he has no chance with Derek Hale, that is until one night before the village feast.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I pounded out in my medieval studies seminar. Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I did this super quickly.
> 
> You can always visit me on tumblr at astrangefate.tumblr.com

Stiles, once again, was left to brew the ale with the ladies. Not that he minded, he would rather sit with Lydia, Alison and Erica and guess who would get the most drunk than set up the church hall with the journeymen. Yet he would like to have had the option. Just because he was without a trade didn’t mean he was without the capability to discus important decisions with the other men of the guild. His father was the beadle of the village, a prestigious position, it made him a member of high status in the Guild of St. Helene. Stiles was expected to follow in his fathers footsteps, but when his mother got sick he instead tended to her, gaining skills of the hearth. While she did eventually die, the skills with herbs he gained would prove valuable in the village for those who could not make the trip or afford to go into the city to see a doctor. Yet it was still considered women’s work and he was far too old to be apprenticed so his status within the social network of Beacon Hills was much lower than the rest of his male friends.

It did not effect his day to day life, however on the days of the guild meeting he felt the cruel reminder of his status, still he made his own fun with the ladies even if he couldn’t socialize with Scott and his other male friends until the feast began.

“Do you suppose Boyd might speak to you tonight Erica?” Lydia asked, snapping Stiles out of his thoughts.

“Oh I hope.” Erica replied as she continued to boil the nettle, creating a deeply sweet scent throughout the boiling house. “Should he maintains his shyness at every event I shall be the last single girl in the village and I will be forced to marry Stiles out of desperation.”

“Hey! You would be lucky to marry me, or have you forgotten who provides the ginger and dandelion for the ale which you so thoroughly love?” Stiles stated it his defense.

“True my dear, however it was Boyd that bent the metal to his will to make the fermenting basin as well as the bindings for these casks so you are equally responsible for feeding my love of ale and you are not quite as sturdily built.”

“Quite true, I suppose that means I must concede to your blacksmith than.”

The ladies giggled. The guild feasts were some of the only times when the ladies might flirt and socialize with their desired husbands. Since this is the first meeting of the guild since Alison and Scotts wedding and announcement of her pregnancy there was a renewed sense of romance to the event and Lydia and Erica were both quite swept up in the atmosphere. Lydia however was having much more luck with her beau Jackson, a minor member of the gentry, than Erica was with Boyd. Boyd had come from the city and was slow to make associations within their smaller village, he was talented and kind, but shy. Despite this Erica was quite in love with the man and they would surely be married if he ever found the courage to ask.

With Lydia and Jackson to be engaged any day and Erica perusing an arrangement of her own he felt as though all of his friends were lucky in love save him. After Scott married his Alison he hoped that their relationship wouldn’t change, but his responsibility to his new wife and his impending fatherhood meant he had less and less time for Stiles. For awhile he took solace in the fact that his friend Isaac too was unlucky in love, however a merchant from Antwerp, Danny, soon came and swept Isaac off his feet. They were wed in Burges months later and continued to travel together selling artisanal wares city to city.

  Perhaps he would not have been so disheartened had his own heart not been tied up with such an unattainable subject. Derek Hale was the only son of the most powerful family in Beacon Hills. They were also gentry yet they did not advertise their status as adamantly as the Whitmores. They owned most of Beacon Hills, but only to try and keep other landed gentry out of the area from taking advantage of the simple folk. They were wonderful landlords and everyone knew they were lucky considering some of the vultures that preyed on other surrounding counties, eating up the resources of the land through tributes and taxing the citizens to near death.

Everyone loved the Hales, but Stiles loved Derek Hale in particular with his whole heart. While others saw him as a quiet and taciturn sort, Stiles knew he was just shy and didn’t have a love for words like his sisters Cora and Laura. Despite the fact that he and Derek barely spoke Stiles fell in love him through his actions. Derek deeply care for the people of Beacon Hills. He gave comfort to the young boy Alain after his father did not come back from checking his snares. He allowed Lydia to borrow his books from the city and even offered to translate his science texts from latin into the vernacular (Lydia of course already could read latin, but the kindness of the act was not lost on her). He even spent a few weeks tilling Erich’s barely field when the old mans ewe gave him a kick in the knee. Stiles nearly died that week, seeing Derek sweating in the May sun, muscles tight under his shirt, jerkin long since tossed aside.

But Stiles would never have Derek, he was too beautiful, to kind, to wealthy, and Stiles just a plain, country herbalist. He didn’t deserve the handsome Hale lord.

After Stiles and the girls were finished with the ale they left it to cool and went to dress for the festivities and weave may flowers into their hair as the sun was slowly setting. Stiles didn’t bother changing. He had worn his better pair of clothes to the fermenting lodge and he would rather attend the feast smelling of ginger and barley than show up in his day clothes with permanent brown stains on the knees from bending down in the spring mud searching for wild lovage. Instead he headed straight to the church to find his father, the hall should have been set up by than.

Stiles was hardly graceful, however he was always particularly wobbly after spending time in the fermenting lodge and with the sun setting the rocks on the ground where less visible so it is no wonder he ran straight into a someones chest after attempting to navigate his way to the front of the church through the garden like a baby deer.

Strong hands reached out to steady him, keeping him from falling on to his backside.

“Stiles?”

Lord help him.

“Derek! I didn’t imagine you’d be out here. Sorry for running into you, I’ve just come from the lodge and it always makes me a bit unsteady.”

“More than usual you mean?”

Stiles blushed and he could not blame it on the influence of the beer. Why must he always appear so foolish in front of Derek! He should just go live in a bog alone, giving out cryptic advice to peasants and scaring children, that after all is the option he had as a sad bachelor with his set of skills. Bog witch or mad pellar and he was less likely to die of embarrassment if he chose the former.

“Yes, ha ha. More than usual.” Stiles only managed a half hearted laugh through his embarrassment. He managed to shake off his shame for a moment to question further, “Is the hall all ready? I’m sure the festivities are about to get underway, you best get in there if you want to get your cut of the pheasant.”

“Yes perhaps, but perhaps I would prefer to idle here a bit longer with you.” Derek replied, a frustratingly gorgeous smirk on his face.

It took Stiles a moment to react to the words. He heard what Derek had said, but he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the implications the words held.

“I… what?” was all Stiles could muster in reply.

Derek step almost improperly close into Stiles’ space. He felt his heart speed up as Derek leaned into further. For a moment, Stiles thought he might receive a kiss and his stomach swooped, but than Derek moved his head slightly to the side and brought his mouth close to Stiles’ ear.

“I thought I might steal you for a moment alone, out here in the dark.” The words might have sounded threatening, but Dereks hands had found their way to Stiles’ hips and his voice had gone low and husky making their meaning much clearer.

“I.. I” Stiles tried to make words, but his mind had completely shut down.

Derek let out a quiet laugh, Stiles felt the air from it behind his ear which caused him to shudder.

“Do I make you nervous Stiles?”

“Yes.” Stiles realized he replied much to fast and his voice was raspy from lust, but at that moment he could find a reason to care.

Derek hands tensed slightly against Stiles’ waist, “I’m not.. I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?” Derek asked, confidence suddenly gone.

Stiles swooned at Derek’s concern, under all the bluster and confidence Derek was concerned about his comfort. It was so undeniably sweet and Stiles felt himself falling all over again.

“No! No. I mean. I liked what was happening, what you were doing I mean. I’m just nervous because, well you’re you, and I didn’t expect this. But it was good!”

Derek smiled, “Good, I liked it to.”

They both smiled at each other, still standing quite close. Stiles felt like he should say something, but the silence felt comfortable.

“So I’ll see you in there, do you think you might dance with me a little later?” Derek asked, blushing slightly.

“Yes! Yes of course.”

“Great, I’ll see you in there Stiles.”

Derek leaned it and placed a gentle kiss on Stiles’ cheek before sauntering away, presumably into the hall. If Stiles thought that he was unsteady before it was nothing compared to after that kiss. He didn’t know if he would be able to get into the church, let alone dance, but he was certainly going to try.

Stiles was going to have to reconsider his stance on becoming a bog witch after all.


End file.
